Flyer: La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros de Connecticut Event - Homenajes Para El Pueblo, 1995
Subject
Virgilio Cruz
(Puerto Rican)
Subject
Ramón Arroyo
(Puerto Rican)
Date1995
MediumPaper
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.131.18
DescriptionFlyer for La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros de Connecticut Event - Homenajes Para El Pueblo, 1995.
NotesBiographical Note: Virgilio Cruz, master cuatro player and composer of décimas (an old poetic form with ten lines of eight syllables each) first learned traditional music from trovadores (folk poetry improvisors) and from his father who played and built cuatros, the 10-stringed guitar-like instrument. After moving to Hartford in 1986, Virgilio established a community traditional music school and orchestra, La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros. Through the school many local Puerto Ricans became good singers, cuatro, guiro, and guitar players as well as trovadores. Several evenings each week after work, people would gather in Hartford’s Puerto Rican neighborhood to take classes in cuatro playing, traditional musical forms such as the seis and aguinaldo, and folk singing taught by Mr. Cruz and others skilled in those traditions. More than just a learning experience, the school brought many people together around the common social bond of música jibara at a time when Hartford offered few cultural activities for Latinos. The school gave rise to La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros, a large performing group of cuatristas and singers which would hold regular concerts in local churches and halls. Like the school, Canto Isleño was formed by senior members of the Orquesta to fill a void in the cultural life of Hartford's largest ethnic group and to expand appreciation for traditional music and poetry. Canto Isleño performed Puerto Rican música jíbara, the songs and poetry of the island's mountain farmers. Their repertoire included folk forms such as Puerto Rican seises and aguinaldos, along with joropas, marumbas, and semi-classical mazurcas, valses criollas and danzas. In 1998, Virgilio moved back to Puerto Rico, a long-time dream of his. He has produced a book of décimas based on the vernacular speech of Puerto Rican campesinos.
The school ended after Virgilio Cruz returned to Puerto Rico, but many musicians who had been trained there continued to play regularly at venues around Connecticut such as Peter’s Café, Los Hermanos, and La Comerio on Park Street in Hartford, and the Puerto Rican Society in New Britain. Amor y Cultura members Alfred Rivera and Joe Diaz performed in the Orquesta and also in Canto Isleño, the school’s select performing group. Ramón Arroyo, a singer who sometimes performs with Amor y Cultura, competed as a trovador in the school’s annual Concurso, a traditional competition for oral composition of the décima song form.
A master cuatrista and teacher, Virgilio is also a poet, accomplished in composing the words of decimas, seises, and aguinaldos (specialized poetic forms in Spanish) which he sets to music. These become both folk songs and popular songs which he sings himself or arranges for Canto Isleño. He was First Prize Winner as Composer, at the Segundo Festival de la Voz y la Cancion, San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico and Semi-Finalist Composer at the XI Festival de la Cancion de la Nueva York in the late 1980s. Virgilio is an experienced performer who can explain as well as perform music in both English and Spanish. The concept of a roving singer/songwriter skilled at extemporaneous song composition is so much a part of Puerto Rican folk music. Virgilio and others developed and presented several Concurso de Trovadores de Nueva Inglaterra" events, traditional competitions in jibaro poetry creation, in Hartford, with support from the national Endowment for the Arts.
Virgilio served on the advisory committee for the Connecticut Heritage Arts Program, and CCHAP served as mentor to La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros, advising on grant writing, organizational development, and marketing/promotion, through a Connecticut Commission on the Arts program. Canto Isleño performed at Charter Oak Cultural Center during the first traditional arts performers series organized by CCHAP in 1995-1996, and was selected for the Connecticut Commission on the Arts Touring Roster. In 1992, the Orquesta was a participant in the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) Newcomers Project, a technical assistance program for artists from recently arrived communities. In 1995, Virgilio was selected as a mentor/teacher as part of the New England Foundation for the Arts Apprenticeship Program. He and the group Canto Isleño are featured on the 1998 CCHAP/WNPR-produced CD "Sounds Like Home."
“I am a musician and poet in the folk traditions of Puerto Rico. I play the cuatro and compose both popular and folk songs. I also write folk poetry in the vernacular of Puerto Rican campesinos as well as Spanish language poetry. My introduction to music came from my father, a luthier who also played cuatro. Later I took lessons in music theory and practice from private instructors and at the Institute for Culture in San Juan where I joined their orquesta. After moving to Hartford in 1986 I formed the performing group Canto Isleño. Several community members asked me to teach cuatro which I began to do, later adding classes in guitar and folk singing. This has developed into regular evening classes and the establishment of La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros de Hartford.
I have been teaching cuatro, guitar and folk music to a variety of age groups for several years. Primarily my teaching experience has been with adults in both a one-on-one lesson format and in a classroom setting. The Institute for Culture in San Juan, where I received musical training, uses a teaching method I feel is very effective: having experienced students as part of a class including less experienced ones, helping to pass on their knowledge and motivation directly to the new students. I am collaborating with a member of my folk singing class, a trained opera singer, on a teaching guide for Puerto Rican folk songs - El Trovador Boricua. Teachers will have this as a resource on the words and written music of the songs so they can use it in the classroom with a trained musician.”
Biographical Note: Ramón Arroyo was an honored jibaro singer who performed often with La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros, a large performing group of cuatristas and singers which would hold regular concerts in local churches and halls around Hartford. Later he sang with the música jibara group Amor y Cultura around New England. He competed as a trovador in the annual Concurso de Trovadores, a traditional competition for oral composition of the décima song form held in the 1990s and again in 2003 in Hartford.
Many additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for these artists and events.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
